The LessRelated Brother
by Overnighter
Summary: For The OCFSC. From Shelbecat's sentence: What if Marissa had shot Ryan instead of Trey?
1. Chapter 1

If Seth could take anything back about That Night -- the night their lives had changed forever -- it wouldn't be that he told Ryan about Trey's attack on Marissa, it wouldn't even be that he had called Marissa to stop him, but forgot to tell her to bring Jimmy or Julie along.

It would be that he had arrived at the apartment moments too late, that he and Summer had stopped -- at a red light, a stop sign, a crosswalk -- for one minute too long, lingered just enough that he had utterly missed the most horrible, awful, significant moment of all of their lives by mere seconds.

He had been parking Summer's car, crookedly, in the driveway, when they heard the noise, and all of those years of videogames and movies his mother swore would rot his brain and parties with Corona thugs _still_ didn't matter in the slightest, because when he heard it, he still thought, 'I wonder who's setting off fireworks?'

When they had burst through the door of the apartment, Marissa was sobbing in a heap by the door, the gun still in her lap. The air was heavy with the burnt smell of cordite and the metallic tang of blood, and Trey was staggering to his feet, swaying, clutching at the corner of the couch. He paused for a moment, his face almost unrecognizable, covered in blood and bruises, and looked down at the floor where Ryan lay, his arm at an odd angle.

It had taken Seth a minute longer than Summer to realize that the dark pool under Ryan was blood. And that he wasn't moving, but Trey was, and that Marissa, whose screaming was so loud that Seth had stopped registering is as anything but white noise, was sitting with a -- literally -- smoking gun in her hands.

"Coop -- Coop! What did you do?" Summer had demanded, kneeling beside her best friend and trying to calm her hysteria, even as she was searching in her tiny purse for her cell phone.

Later, Seth would remember that and think that, of all of them, Summer was the only one who had a chance in hell of making it our of this whole thing in one piece. No matter what, Summer never lost her head, or her mind, or her ability to voluntarily control the movement of her body, all of which Seth had felt at that particular moment.

"He was killing him! He was going to kill him," Marissa was sobbing, and Seth remembered, quite clearly, thinking that she couldn't have meant Ryan, because Ryan was lying on the floor with his arm tilted at a funny angle, and Trey was staring down at him, bemused.

"Cohen! Go check on Ryan. Make sure he's . . . " He had actually heard her pause, he remembered that clearly, too -- it was funny the way that his mind processed some things -- and he remembered thinking, 'She was going to say alive, but she can't, because that will upset Marissa.'

He hadn't actually thought, at the time, that she hadn't dared say it because it might, in fact, turn out to be true. He hadn't believed that was possible at all. Of course Ryan would be fine. Ryan was always fine -- he was the Timex watch of Newport -- took a licking and kept on ticking -- but Marissa was sobbing and Summer was glaring at him even as she had dialed 9-1-1 with shaking fingers.

Trey had leaned down towards Ryan, and that had broken Seth's strange paralysis. He had elbowed the older boy out of the way, and he had staggered before he joined Seth on the other side of Ryan's head. The two of them were kneeling in a growing pool of blood -- Seth had had to throw away all the clothes that he'd worn That Night -- and Trey had frantically tried to get Seth's attention. Seth had been trying, desperately, to remember where you felt for a pulse -- the wrist, the throat, the arm -- no that was for blood pressure -- when Trey had finally knocked his hands away, pulling Ryan to him in a half-sitting position and running his hands over his brother's damp t-shirt, looking for, Seth realized later, a bullet hole.

Later, in the hospital -- after the Ryan had been taken to surgery and Marissa had been given a sedative and they had sat, waiting anxiously, he and Jimmy Cooper bookending the girls like a Julie-Marissa-Summer sandwich on the couch in the lounge as Sandy paced back and forth, his face drawn and pale, looking more lost than Seth had ever remembered seeing -- Marissa explained that Trey had tried to kill Ryan, that he'd been choking him, about to bash him in the face with an old-fashioned telephone. She'd tried to stop him, and he'd knocked her down, she'd picked up the gun -- no she didn't know where the gun had come from -- and fired, but Ryan had found a surge of strength, had bucked and rolled at precisely the wrong moment, and the bullet meant for Trey had torn through the meaty part of his left shoulder.

Later, the exhausted surgeon and the exhausted parents -- not his mother, of course, because she'd left for rehab just that afternoon, and they were supposed to have gone to see a shark movie and forget how terrible it was to have an alcoholic mother or two, but instead, oh yeah, nothing like seeing your almost-brother lying in a pool of his own blood for a little perspective -- talking in low voices because they thought that Seth and Summer had joined Marissa in sleep -- as if they would ever sleep again -- that the wound had been through-and-through, high and wide, the best kind. Apparently, Marissa wasn't a very good shot, had missed his vital organs and his arteries and all the important things near the heart and lungs.

All that -- in retrospect -- had made what Trey had done in the apartment make sense, the way he'd patted Ryan down, front and back, the way he'd snapped at Seth to get towels, or t-shirts, something to hold against the wound.

In the end, he had abandoned trying to get Seth's help and staggered to his feet again, had found what he was looking for -- had found a half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan's, too, and had poured it into the wound -- and Ryan had finally reacted, jerking and screaming, and Seth had finally reacted, too, grabbing at Trey's hands and yelling, until the older Atwood -- the other Atwood -- had slapped him into submission.

Seth had stared at him in shock, his ears ringing, but Trey didn't seem to care, didn't seem to notice that Marissa was still screaming and that Summer was still hollering into the phone at the Emergency Operator, and why had it taken her so long to call and then Seth had realized that only moments had passed since they entered the apartment, and then Trey was already talking over all the noise.

"Dude -- Seth! -- listen to me. You've got to hold this onto the wound -- front and back -- hold it hard. He's gonna whine like a little bitch, 'cause the pressure hurts, but don't listen. You have to stop the bleeding."

Seth had felt like he'd taken a bottle of idiot pills that morning, like he'd been bathing in stupid sauce since his grandfather's death the other day. Why was Trey telling him this?

There had been a noise at the door -- another noise -- and Seth had been startled at how fast the ambulance had gotten there, considering that Summer was still on the phone with them, but it hadn't been the ambulance. It had been Jess Sather, and that had confused him most of all.

It wasn't until weeks later that he'd even heard that part of the story, and at that precise moment -- with Trey forcing him to hurt Ryan by pushing down on his chest, with his girlfriend yelling and Ryan's girlfriend screaming and Trey, with his death-mask of blood, hissing in his ear -- he had felt like he'd walked right into the middle of a Fellini film. Or maybe _Twin Peaks._ Any minute, he had been sure, Trey would start talking backwards, or dwarves dressed nuns would high-kick down the hall from the ratty bedroom Seth had once shared with Alex.

Jess had taken in the scene with one cool, calculating glance, and had crowed Marissa's name in triumph. To Seth's utter surprise -- although why did he even bother, because everything had surprised him for the past twenty-four hours or so -- Trey had jumped up, had yelled at her, and loaded her down with bags and boxes, had sent her to -- wherever she had come from, and had resumed hissing in Seth's ear.

"Listen. This is important. You have to listen. Ryan came here because he found out what went down at the Bait Shop the other night. He wanted to give me a chance to turn myself in. We fought, and the Garden Grove gang showed up. They shot Ryan, and I took off. I called you and Summer, who called Marissa because she was closer. She got here before you and you found her hysterical. I was gone. I left by myself. Seth, are you listening?"

Trey's voice in his ear had been strong and urgent, and Seth had murmured back, almost against his will, "Garden Grove. Fought. By yourself."

Nothing Trey said had made any sense.

"We're going, Jess and me. Tell Ryan -- tell him I'm sorry I had to bounce, and I'll catch up with him when the heat's off. Listen, Seth, I'm taking the piece -- I'll toss it in the ocean -- do not let Marissa tell anyone what happened. Understand?"

No, he most certainly had not understood. Ryan was shot, Marissa had shot him, and Trey was --

"Wait," he had said, finally, the first thing he had managed since they had left for the apartment on Ryan's heels, what felt like weeks ago, "Wait. You're just -- leaving. You can't do that."

Trey had looked down at Ryan's ashen face, had glanced back at Marissa, sobbing in Summer's lap, and had heard, along with Seth, the far-off, beautiful sound of sirens, and had shaken his head.

"There's too much going on here. If we're still here, with the money and the drugs, Ry could be in trouble. He -- he's right to hate me, but I gotta let him cool off a little, I promised him I'd leave."

"Not now! He's -- he's hurt!" Seth had finally settled on, as Marissa began to wail again, and then a sharp car horn sounded.

Trey had jumped, and had grabbed the last bag still sitting on the dining-room table.

"I gotta go. That's Jess, she can't leave me behind to take the fall. Just, take care of him, okay?" Trey had said, and for a moment, a moment that Seth had doubted, later -- when Marissa had explained to them all what had really happened, how Trey had tried to kill his brother -- Trey had looked torn and worried and very, very young. Then he had snatched the gun from Marissa's lap and bolted out the door, and Seth had heard the screech of the tires peeling down the driveway and up the Pacific Coast Highway -- or thought he had -- even above the girls' wailing and the high-pitched whine of the sirens.

In the end, it was, Seth supposed, the best possible outcome for everyone. Ryan wasn't too badly hurt -- he had to wear a sling, and Sandy had forbidden him from working at the Crab Shack -- but he would be better in time for soccer camp in August.

His surgery had been scary, but the doctors said it was routine, and also said it wasn't the first time, which had made Seth startle and Sandy look thoughtful.

The cover story that Trey had hissed into Seth's ear with such power had fallen apart the second that the police had arrived at the emergency room. Seth was okay with white lies, far better than Ryan, but it turned out that he had no real stomach for deceit. Besides, Marissa had started talking the moment that she had stopped screaming and no one, not even Sandy, could get her to shut up.

It turned out, though, that the police were pretty nice to fragile rich girls who had nearly been raped by their boyfriends' thuggish brothers, even when they turned around and accidentally shot their boyfriends in the shoulder. Sandy and Jimmy had done some sort of complicated father-deal where everyone promised not to sue or prosecute everyone else for -- whatever --- attempted rape, attempted boyfriend-i-cide -- and had actually made it sound like Trey had done them all a favor by running with the notoriously bad-news Jess Sather.

He knew Trey was in big trouble, but the police were friends with Sandy, and had kept it out of the papers, had kept Marissa out of jail and hadn't even questioned Ryan, beyond the bare facts, and they weren't looking for him very hard.

The Coopers had left town as soon as Marissa had been cleared by the cops, before Ryan had even awoken from his drugged sleep -- to pick up Kaitlin on the East Coast and spend the summer in Europe "as a family," getting over "Marissa's trauma," but Marissa was still sober when she'd left, and she'd left a letter for Ryan, which Seth and Summer had opened and read without a shred of guilt before giving it to Ryan to read too. She was sorry, she felt guilty, she loved him. It all sounded sincere, if a little absurd.

Kirsten was still in rehab, and that sucked, but she was allowed to call out now and they could visit her. Sandy had waited until the first visitors' day to tell her what had happened -- he had gone up alone, leaving Seth to entertain a bored and irritated Ryan in the pediatric wing of Hoag -- and although it had been hard for her, she'd agreed to stay, as long as she talked to Ryan and Seth every day.

_Atomic County_ was making money despite Seth and Zach's best efforts to destroy it, and when Reed had called, two weeks into summer vacation and offered them a sequel, almost against her will, Seth had actually been glad that Zach's Washington internship had fallen through and the two could try again. He and Zach and Summer were hanging out together, this time, and it was okay. Since That Night, he and Summer didn't fight nearly as much, and whatever had changed between them seemed to have changed Zach, too, so Seth was glad to have him as a friend, for real this time.

And if, when Jess's stepfather had shown up at the house after Ryan had been released, threatening to sue the Cohens and charge Trey with kidnapping, if Seth had watched his father lose his temper for maybe the third time ever, and had realized that Sandy was not over it -- that none of them were really over it -- it was okay, because Sandy had decided that it was time for Everybody in Therapy, like Everybody in Khakis, and that was probably for the best too.

In fact, Seth thought, as he calmly sat outside his therapist's office -- a small waiting room outside the bigger inner chamber where Dr. Mel, as she insisted he call her, was currently meeting with his father and Ryan -- this summer might not have been so bad after all. It was certainly better than last summer, except for one small problem.

Ryan was crazy.

He knew that he wasn't supposed to call it that -- that he was supposed to say that Ryan was "troubled," the way Julie had, before they left, or that he was just experiencing some "Post-Traumatic Stress," as Sandy said, but really, crazy pretty much summed it up.

When Ryan had awakened in the hospital, he had remembered everything, and Sandy had sent Seth out of the room to talk to him alone, to tell him what had happened in the meantime. He said that Ryan was quiet -- but when was that news? -- and they had thought that everything would be okay.

He'd been released from the hospital after nearly a week, with an armful of prescriptions and a standing appointment for physical therapy, and everything had seemed okay. He had gone into the pool house to take a nap after the strain ond confusion of the ride home, and Seth had woken him for takeout, as usual, at eight. It had seemed strange, just the three Cohen men, but it was all right -- they had talked quietly about Sandy's visit to Kirsten, and whether or not Ryan could try sailing with the sling on. They were just about finished, and Seth had actually gotten up to clear the table -- since Ryan was out of commission, Seth was still feeling like, somehow, that was his fault, on some level -- when Ryan had cleared his throat, and ducked his head, and had asked Sandy from behind his shaggy bangs,

"Um, can we go see Trey -- see Trey's grave -- tomorrow?"

Seth had thought, up until that moment, that people only dropped things out of surprise in the movies. That was before he'd spent the next two hours picking pad thai remnants from their kitchen floor.

He had turned back around to the table, where Ryan was staring at the table, and Sandy was staring at Ryan, carefully controlling his breathing.

"Ryan, kid? I thought we went over this in the hospital. Trey's okay. He's not dead. He's just . . . a fugitive. I'd take you to him, but I have no idea where he is," Sandy had admitted.

Ryan had just nodded, and shrugged.

"I'm not going to fall apart," he'd said, earnestly. "You can tell me the truth. I know he's dead. You don't have to pretend anymore."

Seth had come back into the dining alcove and sat heavily in his mother's chair even as Sandy had reached out and covered Ryan's hand with his own.

"I promise, Ryan, I wouldn't lie to you about this. Trey left the night you got shot."

Ryan had looked up, and his eyes had been filled with such sadness that Seth had nearly gasped in surprise.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, "That I was mad. I'm not anymore, I promise. Please tell me. I -- I didn't get to the funeral or anything. I'm not mad at him, I just want to say goodbye."

Seth had been relieved to see that Sandy looked as worried as he felt.

"Ryan -- why do you think Trey's dead?" he had finally asked, trying another tactic.

Ryan had shrugged, and traced little patterns in the table's wood grain with his thumb.

"Why isn't he here? He'd never leave me like that -- not when I was hurt. He'd never do that."

What had surprised Seth the most was how vehement he had been. Since Trey had come to Newport, Ryan had been wary around him, worried about him, and had never expressed any kind of rock-solid belief in him of any kind. So it was doubly strange that he was so insistent about it after his brother had actually tried to kill him, after he'd actually tried to hurt Ryan by hurting his girlfriend.

"I heard him, that night. I heard him say he couldn't leave," Ryan had insisted.

Seth had shrugged, and had entered the conversation, reluctantly.

"Um, that was me, buddy," he had said softly. "I was trying to get him not to go."

Ryan had nodded at that, and raised his head to give Seth a half-smile, and Seth had thought it was just a momentary glitch in the proceedings.

A few minutes later, Ryan had gone back to bed in the pool house, and Seth and his father had exchanged worried glances. As Sandy had helped Seth scrap the scattered leftovers from the floor, he had tried to reassure Seth that some thing about That Night would always probably be a little muddled for them all, and for Ryan especially.

Seth had thought that sounded perfectly reasonable until the next morning, when his father had lost it on Mr. McConnell, Jess's stepfather, and had still been breathing heavily when Ryan had come into the kitchen for a late breakfast. He had made a beeline for the coffeemaker, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room, and had seemed like his normal, grumpy morning self.

When Sandy was still sitting at the table after his first cup of coffee was finished, however, Ryan had slid in across from him, instead of in his usual seat at the end of the counter.

"I was wondering," he had started, watching Sandy out of the corner of his eye, even as he poured cereal carefully into his bowl, "If you were doing anything this afternoon?"

Sandy had shook his head and tried to smile, even though Seth had thought it was a poor job.

"Not really. I've got some calls to make, but not much else. Why? Need a ride?"

With Ryan's arm in a sling, he wouldn't be driving too far, and Sandy had re-arranged his schedule for the first few days so he could take him to the doctors' and the physical therapist's and everywhere else, even though Seth could have done it just as easily.

Ryan had shrugged, and reached for the milk, and had said, casually, as he poured it in with a careful eye, "I just thought we could go to the cemetery after my physical therapy appointment."

They had met Dr. Mel for the first time that afternoon.

To be continued...


	2. Chapter 2

In his two years at The Harbor School, Ryan had learned more than he had ever thought possible, and retained it, too. But he couldn't remember when he had read the April was the cruelest month, which was just as well, because that guy, who ever it is, was full of shit.

Ryan had never been a big fan of summer – too much unstructured time with too few places to go, too few dinners and no school lunches, too many nights when the heat and the sweat and the haze drove ordinary disagreements into painful confrontations. Now, he was just debating whether May or August sucked more.

Until six weeks ago, he would have say August, for sure. August, when Trey had thrown a crowbar through a TransAm window and gotten them both arrested; August when his mother had first kicked him out and then abandoned him; August when Theresa had called him, tears still in her voice, and told him the baby was gone and so was she, just like that.

But now, May was catching up quick. If he had been gut-punched last summer, leaving the warmth and safety of his year with the Cohens for a new, sad, scary life with Theresa and the child he had claimed for his own, this year was a royal beatdown all its own. He hadn't expected Kirsten, of all people, to let him down, just like he hadn't expected things to turn out the way they had with Trey. He had thought that he was strong, and hard, and tough enough, but two years in Newport had softened him, two years in Newport had let the cracks show, at least to fam – at least to Sandy and Seth.

He wasn't sure what he had said or done in those first few days after Marissa had shot him to make Sandy think that he was so fragile that he couldn't handle the truth. Sandy had always been straight with him before – Sandy had always had his back. Now, he was treating Ryan like a little kid who couldn't handle the bad news, and Ryan didn't understand why.

They were sitting together, side by side, in front of the desk that belonged to his therapist. Christ. If anyone from Chino could see him now, they'd bust a gut laughing. But, well, there was really no one from Chino left, and that thought sobered him more than the his actual surroundings did. Theresa was in Atlanta, Eddie was dead to him, Arturo was in jail and Trey – well, Trey was why they were here, wasn't he?

They were not in the room where the actual therapy took place, but in the doctor's far more formal office. They were supposed to be having a "summit" about the Cohens and Ryan, but the minute that they had walked in the door, Dr. Mel had asked Seth to take a seat in the waiting room, and for Sandy and Ryan to follow her into the office.

This was not the first time that they had met Dr. Mel. Two days after Ryan had come back to the Cohens' house from the hospital, two days after he discovered that Sandy wouldn't tell the truth about Trey, he had met Dr. Mel for the first time. Sandy had been convinced that they all needed therapy to deal with "the hard time" they were having, between the shooting and the rehab and the everything in between, and Ryan didn't have the energy to fight him.

They had come to this suite of offices, not to meet with Dr. Mel, but with Dr. Lyon, the child psychologist that Seth had seen years earlier for his "adjustment issues" when he first moved to Newport.

Seth had assured Ryan that the psychologist was not as bad as he thought, and Seth, for a change, was one-hundred percent right. She was a plump – well, plump for Newport – middle-aged woman with a sensible blonde bob and a penchant for wearing denim jumpers. She smiled a lot, and her office, it seemed to him, was geared towards kids a lot closer to the age that Seth had been the first time around. There was a pint-sized table and chairs in one corner of the room, a toybox in another, and he and the doctor had faced each other in neon-colored Papa-san chairs.

Seth had already had his consult, and been sent out to the waiting room with Sandy. Ryan didn't care how many cheerful cartoon animals lined the walls of the office as he trailed behind her into the office, as far as he was concerned, he was entering the Lyon's den.

She asked him a few innocuous questions and then asked what he wanted to discuss. Nothing. That had been really easy. They had sat in total silence across from each other for twenty minutes – Ryan had counted by two in his head for the last seven of them – until she'd stood up and suggested they try something else, which turned out to be hunching over the half-sized table, perched on a stool with his knees around his ears, drawing.

He had tried to explain that art was really Seth's thing, but after all that silence, he was surprised to discover that she really didn't want to listen to him. So he'd sketched the layout of the Harbor School locker room from memory, and had been surprised at how flustered that had made her when the next twenty minutes was over.

With only ten minutes left in their session, he wasn't surprised that she started talking again.

"Isn't there anything you'd like to ask me about?" she had asked, finally, after asking about his family, his hobbies and school, and being met with total silence.

"Yeah, there is," he'd answered as politely as he could after being jerked around for the past 47 minutes, "Can you talk to Sandy and ask him if there's any way that I can go see Trey at some point? I'd really like to say goodbye."

She had ended their fifty-minute hour two minutes early, and had sent him out to sit with Seth and trade comic books for the next half hour. He had heard the rise and fall of Sandy's voice from her closed office door as he stared sightless at the latest issue of i Legion /i , and was wondering if she had relayed his request to his guardian when the door at the other end of the waiting room had opened, and a woman who seemed several years younger than Dr. Lyon. She had dark red, almost auburn hair, which stood up in a short, spiky cut, and was wearing a dark grey suit that Ryan thought he'd seen Kirsten wear before.

"I suppose that neither of you is Parminder Patil?" she asked in a British accent. At least, Ryan had thought it was British, but it didn't sound at all like the accents on those Masterpiece Theatre movies that Kirsten was always watching.

The two boys had shaken their heads as one.

"Right. Well, it seemed unlikely, but one does hate to make assumptions. Waiting for Dr. Lyon, then?" she had asked at almost the same moment that Sandy had come storming out of Dr. Lyon's office and had ordered them to the car.

"Boys, we're leaving. Right now."

And that was the last that Ryan, at least, had thought of the British doctor for quite some time.

The next doctor that Sandy had dragged them all to was an honest-to-God psychiatrist, and Ryan wondered whether Sandy thought he was getting crazier as the summer went along. Ryan certainly thought Seth and Sandy were.

They had taken to following his movements around the house, and he would sometimes look up from one of the benches where he was lifting weights under careful supervision at physical therapy and see one or the other's face bobbing anxiously in the lone window of the PT room's door. They would find excuses to enter the pool house three or four times a day, and every time he left the house – even to take a walk on the beach – one of them always wanted to come along. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate it, but he sometimes found it difficult to breathe.

Dr. Beddingfield was as different from Dr. Lyon as night and day. He was the partner of the Cohens' – and now Ryan's – family doctor, Neil Plummer, who was also one of Sandy's oldest friends.

Two days after their failed meeting with Dr. Lyon, he had shown up at the pool house door, bearing two sodas and sheepish look on his face. He was older than Sandy and Neil, closer to Caleb's age, but a physically big man, with broad shoulder and wide hands and a bulbous nose hidden behind a salt and pepper beard. Ryan had met him once or twice before, at various Cohen functions, but he didn't think he ever talked to him alone.

"Hey, Ryan, how ya doin'?" he asked in his easygoing way, and Ryan had shrugged from his perch on the bed. He had been in the midst of reading "A Clockwork Orange" for his summer reading, and parts of it were hitting just a little too close to home, so he'd actually welcomed the distraction, even if Sandy had sprung it on him.

The doctor had handed him a soda, and had settled into what Ryan privately thought of as Sandy's chair with a sigh.

For the next hour, they'd chatted carefully about school and sports and whether Sandy and the boys wanted to join the doctors for an Angels game before the summer was over. He'd explained that since he'd known the Cohens for so long, he couldn't treat Sandy and Seth, but that Sandy thought he might have a rapport with Ryan.

"And I think he thought my experience might help."

"Your experience?" Ryan had asked warily. He'd gone to a group session while he was in juvie – had been forced to – where everyone was supposed to talk about all the things that had led them there. After an hour of listening to tough boys stumble awkwardly through their own versions of Dawn and A.J. and Chino life, he had done all of the sharing he'd ever cared to do on that particular topic.

"Didn't Sandy tell you? I work at the VA in San Diego – mostly with vets that have PTSD."

"I'm not crazy," Ryan had protested, and the older man and nodded in agreement.

"No, I didn't think so. Of course, neither are they, really."

Ryan had liked that he was honest and upfront about everything, and that he had carefully explained the nature of confidentiality, and how he wouldn't even talk to Dr. Plummer about Ryan's case.

"Confidentially, Ryan," he'd said with a conspiratorial wink as they ended their session, "My cases don't exactly make the best pillow talk."

Things had gone well enough that Ryan had agreed easily to a second session, and he was hoping to talk to Dr. Beddingfield – Noah – about Trey the next time. Instead, he'd screwed things up royally, and had been, for the first time, ready to admit that he might not be coping quite as well as he should.

The day before Dr. Beddingfield had returned to the house, a gardener's truck down the street had backfired, and Ryan had had his first panic attack in his time with the Cohens. While he'd come close a few times during the Oliver mess, he hadn't what Trey used to call his "vapors" since he'd stopped living with A.J. When Seth had mentioned it in passing as they all ate lunch together before Ryan's next "session," Noah had suggested that they try some relaxation techniques.

What Ryan hadn't understood was that one of the doctor's specialties was hypnosis. He was surprised to find that the whole process was nothing like the magicians he'd seen on television, even more surprised to find that he was a good candidate – easy to put under. So easy, in fact, that he'd surfaced over an hour later, wedged tightly into the space between the toilet and the wall in the pool house bathroom, his face covered in tears, while Sandy and Noah tried to take the locked door off its hinges.

Dr. Beddingfield had been beside himself, and Ryan, for the first time, had been afraid. He hadn't done anything like that in years, since Carl, two scumbags before A.J., had lived with them, before Ryan had had his adolescent growth spurt.

Noah said that he'd used a standard method to put him under – having Ryan count backwards in time – but that something he'd said had triggered a memory. Ryan had had what was essentially a flashback under hypnosis, and had reacted as if he'd been twelve years old again.

That part didn't seem so bad, although Noah kept threatening to turn his license in to the state board. No, what had really scared Ryan was the fact that he'd awoken from his stupor with Trey's name on his lips – and that he couldn't for the life of him remember why.

Dr. Mel was their third try, and Ryan was beginning to worry that she was about to be his third strike, watching her from under his overlong bangs as she spoke forcefully to Sandy.

The day after the pool house disaster, Noah had shown up at breakfast time with Angels tickets and a suggestion. He met this doctor at a conference, she worked with adolescents now, but had worked oversees with refugees before that. To no one's real surprise – although Seth kept insisting that his childhood was like a war zone – there were few other doctors who specialized in both teenagers and PTSD, which is what everyone kept insisting that he had.

Sandy had groaned when Noah had handed him the card, and he saw the familiar address, but in the end, he had decided, Ryan needed to talk to someone who wasn't, in fact, actually a Cohen.

When Ryan had walked into her office with Sandy at his side earlier this afternoon, he was surprised to find that she remembered him.

"Right, then – still not Parminder Patil, are you?" she'd said with a smile as they walked in, and Ryan had found himself shooting a her a crooked grin as Sandy started beside him.

"You two have met?" he had asked suspiciously.

"Sort of," Ryan had started to explain, but the doctor cut him off.

"Not as such, Mr. Cohen. I saw Ryan -- isn't it? – and his brother in the waiting room last week."

"Seth's not my brother," Ryan had snapped without thinking, and he had felt Sandy tense beside him. Since he refused to look the older man in the face, he was forced to look at red-haired woman in front of him, behind her sleek mahogany desk, staring at him with one eyebrow raised high.

"I'm sorry," she had said mildy, "As I might have mentioned, I usually try not to make assumptions."

Ryan, to his dismay, had felt the dull heat of embarrassment coloring his face.

"I just meant – not that he's not – he's – Sandy and Kirsten are my guardians, and Seth's their son," he had mumbled, stumbling over every word, but the doctor had just nodded and asked them both to sit down.

"Okay, since I talked to Dr. Beddingfield the other day, I have a little background on the situation, but let me hear it from you. Why are you here, do you think, Ryan?" she had asked, and Ryan was surprised that she'd asked him and not Sandy.

"You see, doctor, Ryan's had a very difficult last few months," Sandy had started, automatically, at this point, and the doctor had turned her level gazed to him.

"Oh, I'm sorry, are you Ryan, as well?" she had inquired in a perfectly innocent tone of voice, and Sandy had stumbled to a stop.

"No, I'm Sandford Cohen, Ryan's gua—okay, I get it."

"Ryan?"

She was the first person all summer to ask his opinion on anything that had to do with the night in question. Unconsciously, he had begun to play with the fraying edge of his sling as he answered her, so he wouldn't have to meet her level gaze.

"Sandy's thinks I'm nuts," he blurted, finally, and before Sandy could protest he'd continued. "My brother tried to rape my girlfriend, and when I found out I went over to his place to fight him. My girlfriend got there and thought he was going to kill me, so she killed him, and shot me, and then left for Europe while I was still in the hospital. That last part's not her fault, though, really. Oh, and Kirsten, Sandy's wife, she went to rehab that same day, and now Sandy thinks if he tells me the truth that I'll go all crazy again or something.

"And what truth isn't Sandy telling you?" the doctor asked, and he could hear nothing but honest curiosity in her voice.

"That Trey's dead."

"And Trey is….?"

"My brother. For real, my brother. The one that hurt Marissa – my girlfriend."

Sandy was protesting again from the seat beside him, but Dr. Mel just held up a hand to silence him.

"And why do you think he's dead? Even though everyone around you insists otherwise?"

That was the real question, wasn't it. Why would Sandy, and Seth, and everyone else be lying to him? What had he done to convince them that he just couldn't handle it? Why wouldn't they just tell him the truth.

"They said Trey left that night, after I got shot. Trey wouldn't do that," he said. Why was that so hard for people to understand? Seth, he got. Seth hadn't grown up with siblings, he didn't understand that power, really, of that bond. But Sandy had a brother and a sister, he should know that, even if you hated him, you'd always have your brother's back.

"Trey wouldn't leave you?"

"No. Never, not if I was hurt," Ryan insisted, and for the first time he looked up and looked her squarely in the eye. "He wouldn't do that."

She nodded, her eyes never leaving his.

"But Sandy would lie to you, everyone who loves you, they would all lie?"

"Yes! I mean, no – just, maybe, I guess, if they thought it would make me better," he stuttered, and he heard Sandy start to protest again.

"And is it making you better, Ryan?"

"No."

"Then why would they keep doing it?"

Sandy was talking over her again, but Ryan wasn't listening to the words. Why would they do that? Why would they hurt him? Why wouldn't they let him say goodbye?

"I don't know," he whispered miserably as he dropped his head again.

Sandy and the doctor were arguing over his head, but he didn't care. He wanted to go back and rewind this summer, until they were back in April, until he'd dropped Trey off at Rick's shabby house with his box of prison stuff and never looked back.

He'd been ready to leave Trey that day – leave him behind like he'd left the rest of Chino behind and move on. But Sandy hadn't let him. Sandy had insisted that Trey had a place in his world.

And now, of course, Trey was gone. And Ryan wasn't even sure if he had a place in his world anymore. But Trey would never have left him there, bleeding on the floor. Trey wasn't like Ryan, able to turn his back on the past and keep going, able to forget old loves and old slights. Trey was loyal. Trey was family. And Ryan didn't understand why the Cohens didn't see that.

"…okay, Ryan?"

Whatever the doctor had asked had gone right over his head.

"What?"

He looked up, and both Dr. Mel and Sandy were watching him carefully, their eyes worried.

"Are you back with us, kid?" Sandy asked, laying a hand carefully on Ryan's good shoulder, and squeezing lightly.

"Sorry. I'm fine. "

"Okay, then, Ryan, I'm going to talk to Sandy alone for a few minutes, then, and then to Seth. I'd like to see you again, if you would. I think we'll have a lot to talk about."

Ryan was suddenly tired. He was tired of talking. He was tired of not talking. He was tired of that look in Sandy's eyes all the time. He was so fucking tired.

"Fine," he answered shortly, and stood up carefully, "I'll go wait with Seth. Tell Sandy when you want to see me again."

He walked out of the door without another word.

In the waiting room, Seth's head was bent over a comic book Ryan couldn't identify. His iPod was on, and his head was bobbing slightly in time to the music only he could hear, his long, lanky frame folded into the chair Indian-style. As Ryan headed down the hall, something alerted Seth to his presence, and he looked in Ryan's direction, flashing him an anxious smile.

Seth was the best thing that had happened to him – Seth and Sandy and Kirsten. If he still lived in his mother's house in Chino, instead of in a pool house in Newport Beach, he would still be almost as happy as he had been the past year, as long as the Cohens were with him. Seth might not have been his brother, but he was Ryan's closest friend. And he'd never lied to Ryan. Not once since he'd known him.

Ryan's stomach twisted as he slid into a seat across from Seth and watched as he resumed his reading. New family or old, Chino style or Newport style, big brother or his slightly-less-related brother, as Seth had once called himself, whatever happened next, whatever path he chose, Ryan was going to get hurt.


End file.
